


Your Brokeback Mountain Fantasy

by squilf



Category: The Ritual - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Ending, First In The Fandom, Internalized Homophobia, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-05
Updated: 2018-04-05
Packaged: 2019-04-18 14:35:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14215290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/squilf/pseuds/squilf
Summary: “When we get back I was thinking I might stop on a few days. Maybe get out there, do a little bit more hiking. What do you think, man?”An alternative ending.





	Your Brokeback Mountain Fantasy

**Author's Note:**

  * For [themilitarymonk](https://archiveofourown.org/users/themilitarymonk/gifts).



> I absolutely loved this film and got way, way too much subtext from that one line. And the scene when they're sitting round the fire, saying "no one's fucking anybody" and the camera just seemed to linger on Hutch?
> 
> Based on this conclusive evidence, I obviously had to write an alternative ending that takes place after a lovely and totally non-lethal trip through the woods. Big love to themilitarymonk for always indulging my horror obsession.
> 
> I haven't read the book yet so this is probably horribly inconsistent with it - please forgive!

“When we get back I was thinking I might stop on a few days. Maybe get out there, do a little bit more hiking. What do you think, man?”

 

Hutch is sitting as close as he can without actually touching Luke. He does that a lot. It makes Luke fidgety. He lights a fag to give himself something to do with his hands. He’s been smoking more lately, drinking more. Sleeping less. He feels stretched and wrung out and heavy and _tired_. He probably looks like shit. And yet Hutch is looking at him like he’s the dawn at the end of a long, dark night.

“It’s beautiful up here,” he says.

The grass is thick and stubbly, like cornfields in the English summer sun. Below them the valley stretches out, huge and alien, black trees and yellow grass and grey sky.

“Yeah,” Luke says, “It’s also fucking freezing. There’s a perfectly good lodge down there.”

“You can’t see the sunset from down there.”

“I can’t see it from up here.”

Hutch gestures towards the sky, open palmed.

“It’s _right there_.”

“It’s _cloudy_.”

“Lukey,” Hutch sighs fondly, “We are on the side of a mountain, not a soul around for miles. Let me enjoy that for a bit, hmm?”

“Well I’m glad I’m freezing my balls off so you can live out your Brokeback Mountain fantasy.”

Hutch laughs and playfully shoves Luke’s head.

“Seeing as you _are_ here, and looking very dashing might I add,” he says, taking out his phone.

Luke grimaces as Hutch leans back to take a photo of him.

“Very brooding,” Hutch says, “Now try smiling. It doesn’t hurt.”

Luke rolls his eyes, but Hutch looks like an idiot and he can’t help the fond smile that slips onto his mouth.

“Always were a handsome devil,” Hutch says, looking at the screen.

“Fuck off.”

Hutch pockets his phone.

“You’re so sweet when you’re coy.”

“Oh really?”

“Yeah, I almost believe you haven’t half choked me with your cock a hundred times.”

“Is this you trying to seduce me?” Luke says, flicking away his cigarette, “Because it’s pretty fucking awful.”

“You love it.”

“I don’t.”

“It’s always worked.”

“Yeah, out of pity.”

“Shut up,” Hutch says, and kisses him. 

Before Luke can do anything, he’s flat on his back and Hutch is on top of him, shoving his tongue into his mouth.

“God, I missed this,” Hutch says, and Luke grabs the back of his head to pull him closer.

“We do _have_ a tent, mate,” Luke says.

Hutch grins and bites Luke’s bottom lip.

“Where’s your sense of adventure? You once fucked me in a swimming pool.”

“Fuck me, we should have gone to Ibiza,” Luke says.

They’ve been doing this too fucking long. Hutch is one of the few constants in Luke’s life, a pull that waxes and wanes but never lets him go. Like the moon and the ocean, forever bound.

 

“Can I ask you something?” says Rob.

They’re walking back from the pub, the world a little darker at its edges and burning bright when Luke takes a sip of vodka from the bottle.

“Nothing too complicated,” he says.

“You and Hutch.”

There’s a pause. Luke stops walking. Rob is looking at him, his eyebrows raised, all his usual warmth with a little challenge thrown in. Luke hates that look. It means he’s done something wrong.

“That’s not a question,” he says.

“Alright. What the hell is going on with you and Hutch?”

“I said nothing complicated.”

“Oh, come on.”

Luke opens his mouth, shuts it.

“I’m not gay,” he says eventually, “If that’s what you’re thinking, ‘cause I’m not.”

“Mate, I don’t give a shit. I’m just worried about you.”

“Well you don’t have to be, because I can look after myself.”

“Is this what looking after yourself looks like?” Rob says, looking pointedly at the bottle of vodka.

“Fuck off.”

“Luke –”

“No, I don’t, I don’t need you, fucking... standing there and judging me, mate.”

Luke pinches the bridge of his nose.

“How long have you known?”

Rob shrugs.

“I knew at uni. I was glad you stayed friends, after. I figured it was, you know, a fling. One of those things that happens when you’re young.”

Luke nods, wide-eyed. Knows he probably looks intensely guilty. Rob frowns and takes a step closer.

“Has it been going on all this time?”

Luke doesn’t say anything.

“Fuck me,” Rob says under his breath.

Luke takes another swig of vodka. Rob looks like he wants to say something, the words almost pushing themselves out of his mouth. He stops himself, starts again.

“It’s… it’s not the fucking sixties, mate. You can be together now. Have a big fuck-off gay wedding if you like.”

“And what if I don’t want to?”

“Then stop fucking him!” Rob says, spreading his arms wide.

He sighs, runs his hand through his hair.

“Mate, I love you. I love you both. But you’ve got to sort this out. Promise me that. Please.”

Luke nods.

“I promise.”

He never kept that promise, of course, but it didn’t really seem that important when there was no one to keep it for.

 

At night they lie their sleeping bags together and Hutch holds him, Luke’s face buried in his neck.

“I got ya, mate,” Hutch murmurs into his hair, “I got ya.”

Luke lets himself have this. He’s too tired not to. The wind batters their tent all night. Luke dreams they’re in a little boat at sea, the waves black and glistening and a mile tall.

 

When Luke wakes up, sunlight is glaring in through the tent and his eyes are stuck together with sleep.

“Good afternoon,” says Hutch.

Luke groans.

“I figured you needed the rest,” Hutch says, “You haven’t been sleeping enough lately.”

“Alright, nan.”

“You’re so grumpy when you wake up,” Hutch says fondly, leaning down for a kiss.

Luke kisses him lazily, not really wanting anything from it. He feels like he’s slept for days, and he could sleep for at least a week more.

“I was thinking,” Hutch says.

“Always a bad idea,” Luke says quickly.

Hutch chuckles ruefully. He traces a line up Luke’s shoulder with his finger.

“When we get back,” he says.

“No, mate,” Luke says quickly.

“No what?”

“I don’t, I just don’t want to talk about it.”

“You don’t know what I’m going to say.”

“Well, I don’t want to anyway.”

“Lu, darling, please don’t do this,” Hutch says, drawing closer.

“You always do this. You can’t just let it be, keep this –”

“Catherine’s leaving me.”

They’re both silent. After a long pause, Luke says, almost automatically, “Oh. I’m sorry mate.”

“Yeah. Well. We stayed together for the kids. Of course it probably didn’t help that I’ve been sleeping with a man for the last 20 years either.”

“She knows?”

“Lukey,” Hutch says, and his eyes are sad, “Everyone knows.”

 

When Luke thinks about it (and he tries not to think about it), he was fucked from the start. Hutch had this smile he only ever seemed to have for him. And it turned out, when he found out (and it took him a year, and a house party, and a lot of vodka to find out), that smile felt perfect against his. A lot of things felt perfect, actually. But then, they were young. They thought they could have the world.

  
“We’re too old to be doing this,” Hutch says.

It’s their last day. It’s their last day, and he’s still only sitting next to Luke, not touching him. As if boundaries still matter here, somewhere that’s outside normal life, outside all their rules. Luke can see the sunset tonight, and it’s bright red. He never knew the sky could be that colour.

“What, is that what this is?” Luke says, “Just a... a fucking farewell fuck? ‘Thanks for the shags, I’m off to find the next missus’?”

“Luke, _shut up_. Can’t you see what I’m saying?”

Hutch leans closer, looking up at Luke with eyes he’s never been able to say no to. Hutch laughs.

“Fucking hell, you’re not all that bright sometimes are you? I’m saying I want to be with you, you idiot. Let’s stop fucking around.”

Luke frowns.  


“I’m not... I’m not being your fucking _boyfriend_.”

“Why not?” Hutch says, undeterred.

“Well for a start, I’m not gay.”

“Yeah, I remember you saying that the first time you sucked me off.”

“Oh yeah? Well you’re the one who fucked off, you’re the one with the wife and kids and the midlife fucking crisis.”

Luke knows he’s going too far because he’s saying things he really means, things he’s kept locked inside him for years, growing harder and sharper and uglier.

“I only fucked off because you were never going to commit.”

Hutch is angry, his eyes pricked with tears.

“ _Luke_ ,” he says, “I love you.”

Luke laughs, but it’s more of a sharp exhale of breath.

“Fuck off.”

“Why is it so fucking hard to believe that? Why else would I do this? Why else would I be here?”

Luke shrugs.

“Because you wanted a shag?”

Hutch touches him then, grabs his thigh as he comes closer.

“Because I love you, and although you might never admit it, you love me too.”

“Jesus, are you a teenage girl? We had sex, doesn’t mean I love you.”

“We’ve been having sex for the last twenty fucking years, Lukey. It means something.”

Hutch’s voice goes quiet. He rests his forehead against Luke’s.

“Let’s stop running from this. Let’s just make a fresh start. You and me. Let’s live together in a house. Go to bed together and wake up still there in the morning. We can have a life, Luke. A good one.”

Hutch strokes Luke’s hair, gently like he’s touching a wild animal he doesn’t know he can trust. Luke’s silent, breathing heavy, his nose bumping against Hutch’s. He shuts his eyes. He thinks of Rob, who he made a promise to, who he let down, who he lost. He realises he doesn’t want to lose Hutch. He realises he doesn’t have to.

“Okay,” he says quietly, “Okay.”

When Hutch kisses him, he tastes of forgiveness, and all the possibilities Luke’s never let himself think of.


End file.
